Oettinger, Beatrice (DEU)
Lunaria
highly commended
Beatrice is a multi-disciplinary artist known for her delicate, luminous artworks incorporating botanical elements.
2024 was her first time as finalist in Paper on Skin™.
Beatrice describes the inspiration for her artwork:
“I wander in nature, to find and then bring more and ever more materials into [new and] direct orbit around the body.
What I look for in these natural materials is their capacity to enter into a vibration between the interior and exterior, by their scent, sound, touch; by their warmth, by their glistening in light.
The dress is that field -- that realm -- in which these vibrations can be set in motion, and where transformation can take place.”
Design elements: Transparency - crumpling/folding - multidimensionality
The transparency of various transparent papers such as parchment, cut paper, sandwich paper, is a reminiscence of Western culture, which used parchment before paper arrived.
Crumpled paper will be used as a base – it resembles the surface of the skin (microscopically) and provides the necessary stability.
Tubes of crumpled paper in which the paper threads are visible, on which the small smooth tubes with the plants are visible. During my research I discovered the so-called microtubules in the membrane of the plant cell wall, are partly responsible for cellulose.
The sound of the tubes and the texture of the paper is a very important part of the wearable performance of the piece.
materials and technique
Leaves of the plant Lunaria Annua commonly called ‘honesty’. Glassine paper 42 g/m² . Transparent sketch paper 22g/m². All papers were rubbed with boiled tapioca starch, crumpled several times and smoothed by hand and ironed (inspired by the Momigami method to make the paper soft and tear-resistant), partly painted with raw brushstrokes with pigment in acrylic binder bookbinding glue. Wenzhou rice paper 30 g/m² soaked with hot paraffin wax, formed into tubes, silver leaves attached to them. Raffia cord - raw and braided.
See the Work on Film
Photos Credit: Grant Wells Photo